Preparation

Make the cake:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly coat two 9"-diameter cake pans with nonstick spray. Line bottoms with parchment paper rounds; lightly coat rounds with nonstick spray. If using raisins and rum, heat together in a small saucepan over low just until warm, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit until liquid is absorbed and raisins are plump, 15–20 minutes.

Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl until smooth, about 1 minute. Beat in vanilla extract and salt. Reduce speed to low and gradually mix in powdered sugar. Increase speed to high and beat frosting until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Assemble the cake:

Place 1 cake, domed side down, on a platter. Spread 3/4 cup frosting evenly over top. Place remaining cake, domed side down, on top. Spread top and sides with 1 1/4 cups frosting and chill 30 minutes to let frosting set. Spread remaining frosting over top and sides, swirling decoratively. Top with Candied Carrot Coins, if desired.

Reviews

This is a delicious, moist cake. I used only 3 cups of powdered sugar in the frosting and found that to be plenty. It was my first time making a carrot cake and I cut my carrots into 3-4 inch long pieces before shredding with the grating blade of my food processor. This left me with quite long shreds of carrot throughout the cake. Next time I would either cut the carrots into smaller chunks before grating or I'll stand them up on end so the shreds are shorter.

This really IS the only carrot cake recipe you'll ever need. I made it in a 9 x 11 pan, iced it with cream cheese/orange juice and zest frosting and stood back. The cake is amazingly moist and delicious. Everyone wanted the recipe, even those who've been baking carrot cakes for decades.

This was hands down the best carrot cake i've ever had/mde. I changed very little about the recipe, other than a few tweaks. Instead of grating the carrots large, I grated them finely, and omitted the raisins and nuts. I also halved the amount of sugar in the icing (I hate overly sweet cream cheese icing!!). The biggest thing I modified was to drizzle the tops of the cakes with a whiskey simple syrup as soon as they were cool enough to touch, then wrapped them in saran wrap and popped them in the fridge overnight. I frosted them the next day and holy cow was it every good. Fine, dense but extremely moist crumb, frosting to die for and a plate that was licked clean. I'll never make any other carrot cake again.

This cake is outstanding! Moist, flavorful, tender crumb, and perfect flavor. I will make this again and again. It's so much reward for so little effort (assuming you have a food processor for quick grating of the carrots).

This cake is perfect. I added a heaping 1/4 cup of floor because i am at altitude. I did not soak my raisins, simply folded them in at the end and i left out the nuts (personal preference). I was short on ground ginger but did add extra cinnamon. The other spices i used heaping quantities but pretty much followed directions. I used 2 - 8oz cream cheese packages, i like a thick layer of icing in the middle, and so did all of the people who ate it! I followed the assembly instructions and the cake set up perfectly. I made this the evening before serving.
40 minutes cook time was prefect, about 200° in the center of the cake.
I pretty much followed the recipe and it was moist and amazing. I impressed myself, haha!
Making the candied carrots was difficult, but the few that i used, people loved, i will try that technique again.

this cake is an absolute dream. it's a bit of work - grating a pound of carrots by hand, cutting parchment paper circles - but the end product is worth it. i made it once for a birthday and it was then requested again for a baby shower. swapped currants for raisins. upped spice amounts. mixed walnuts and pecans. cut the sugar by about 1/8 cup and was still moist. note: the frosting recipe makes more than the cake requires tho so be prepared to freeze some...

This is one of the best carrot cakes I have ever made. Very tasty and moist. I just made a few changes.... I added 1/2 c. Drained crushed canned pineapple instead of raisins, used pecans instead of walnuts, reduced spices just a scant and baked in a 9/14 baking pan. It cooked perfectly in about 40 minutes. I was able to reduce the frosting by a third. No need to search for another Carrot Cake recipe again.

This cake is delicious. I prefer a less spicy cake, so I cut the spices by 1/2..but next time would cut by 1/4 th. Suggest you add the golden raisins & the walnuts were in perfect porporation- using the correct pan size also make perfect cakes. .....would cut the sugar in frosting next time, less sugar with more cream cheese.
Loved this cake & you will too ❤️